SPECIAL MEETING OF THE PORT HURON CITY COUNCIL ON RENTAL HOUSING

The Port Huron City Council met on August 10, 2009, directly following the regular meeting. The Council and audience retired to room 408. Every seat in the room was taken.

Mayor Brian Moeller called the meeting to order and told everyone that he had asked Councilmember Stevens to chair the meeting as she had been the one to ask for this workshop.

Councilmember Stevens greeted everyone and made a brief opening statement. She said that the subject of the meeting was to discuss the rise of low income rentals and the adverse effects on this community. She said this was an information gathering meeting only and no decisions would be made. The night would be to discuss the problem and gather information. There would be a couple presentations and the audience was welcome to give their perspective on this issue. She also wanted everyone to know that the council and administration was aware of the unemployment issue and that they were not heartless concerning this problem. She then invited Kim Harmer, Planning Department Head, to give a rundown on where the city stands at this point.

Ms. Harmer said that no one argues that quality housing should be available in the neighborhoods. She said there has been a variety of types of housing fluctuations over the years, but right now these are the statistics as she knows them. In 2000, the last time it was reported, there were 12,000 occupied homes. Of those right now, 57% are owner occupied and 42.8% are rentals. The population in Port Huron is 32,338 and the average medium income is $31,327. The standard poverty level in Michigan is $22,000. 13.4% of Port Huron's population are below the poverty level.

The city has some tools in place now to deal with certain issues. The Blight Ordinance was put in place to keep property owners from letting their property become run down. The Rental Ordinance was put in place in 1994. There is a fine for non-compliance.

There are 3 major landlords in the area the city is talking to about the exterior of the homes and are working with them to get the homes in compliance with the city. Ms. Harmer stated that we are all in this together and must work hard to cooperate with each other. Some neighborhoods have 70% rentals!

Mayor Moeller asked who the names of those property owners were that the city was working with. Ms. Harmer stated they were Mr. & Mrs. Barcome, Mr. McNeil and Mr. Barcome.

One of the trends the city has seen recently are people who are leaving town to work elsewhere are renting their homes. People are not able to sell their homes so they have opted to rent them. Councilmember Stevens asked if those home owners are registering themselves as landlords when they do this. Ms. Harmer stated that a lot of them are. She said at this point there are more calls to inquire about the rules, and she's sure some people are not aware they have to register so they have not even inquired.

At this time the floor was opened up to the public. Mike Bodeis, president of the Port Huron Area Landlords Association spoke first. He said that the Association supports the cities efforts to provide quality housing to people. He has owned rentals for 35 years. 15 years ago he volunteered 10 properties to be inspected which started the rental inspection program. He feels Port Huron is in trouble right now. Many of the rental houses are in very bad shape and he feels that many of these houses could be eliminated. He felt that if this happened, this would eliminate the homeless and undesirables. They are suggesting that any house that has been red tagged and sitting from 60 to 90 days should be torn down. Mr. Bodeis stated that there is plenty of low income housing in town. He said the landlords have had a chance to sit down with the city manager and they have discussed this in depth. He also pointed out that the word on the street is for people to go to Port Huron for all your social needs, which is bringing people here to freeload. Many people are coming from outside our county to take advantage of programs and funds that should be going to residents.

Next to speak was Jo Ann Rumford. She said she had been living in low income housing because she has a disability. She grew up in Detroit and saw the blight. She said there are a lot of transients in Port Huron and social workers are with them every day so she doesn't think it's a problem. She feels these people will be worked with. It's a community thing and crime has gone up in cities all over.

Pauline Foster who lives on Walnut St. stated that she became disabled in 2004. She lost her house and is now living in low income housing which she is very thankful for. The unit is owned by the city.

Craig Matthews is a proud resident of Port Huron. He bought a house in 1995. He had to put up a privacy fence recently because there is a a rental and a foreclosed home that but up to his property.

Ken Harris feels that we have created this problem ourselves. We have facilitated people coming form Detroit. He finds it odd that we worry so much about the people who live on the system but he has yet to hear anyone say what we are going to do for the people losing jobs at Acheson.

Dick Cummings felt that if there are no regulations on the books about this, there should be. He gave some startling statistics. 1 out of 84 people in the country will be foreclosed on this year. 2600 people in Port Huron will run out of unemployment by the end of the year.

Jenny McCready works for Safe Horizons. She said they do house undesirables, many of which have mental health issues. There is a cost in not housing people. She said that regarding how you feel about undesirables, they cost us more not to house. She read off a study they did recently. Many of the people who had had frequent visits to the emergency room had decreased their visits by half or less by living in the shelters. People who were arrested frequently again reduced their time in jail by half or less when living in the shelters. This saved the taxpayer huge amounts of money.

Mayor Pro-tem Fisher has an objection to the whole sale bulldozing of whole neighborhoods but he felt surgically removing certain homes that are in horrible shape and too close to the house next door is a very reasonable option.

The question was posed to Ms. Harmer as to how many dilapidated homes there are. She said honestly there was no way to tell because they change all the time. She did say that there are not as many as we may think.

Councilmember Stevens asked attorney Gary Fletcher if there are things we can do with laws to make people more enthusiastic about doing more with their homes.

Mr. Fletcher said the city has consistently stepped up on the code. He said they could require more if it's a safety issue. He said the rental law has to be upgraded or toughened. He did point out that many years ago, before there were stiffer laws on rentals, many of the houses went from 2 units to 5 without the city even knowing. When the city started doing inspections, they had paperwork on a 2 unit and walked into a 5 unit.

Another suggestion was made that while housing values have dropped, maybe it's time to acquire these properties to demolish even though they might be rehabbed.

Ms. Harmer said on a case by case basis it could work. She said they had been doing it on a limited basis.

She was asked what the city policy was if a citizen comes forward to let the city know a house is available? She said the city really has no resources to do something with the house so they would pass it on to an organization that can deal with them, like the PHNHC.

Councilmember Stevens stated that our tax base is eroding. We have to do something to hit a balance. If our tax base continues to slip, we can't pay for services expected by home owners. She summoned up a couple things that they had concluded in the meeting. One is to look at stronger ordinances and the other is to form a better partnership with Port Huron Neighborhood Housing Corp.

Councilmember Byrne said one of the things he felt would help is to attract people to Port Huron. He said we need to work with the real estate agents to find out what is attracting people to or driving them away from the city. He said the local realtors would be a very good source for this information.

Mayor Pro-tem Fisher stated that in many sales environments you target market people who will appreciate the product being sold (in our case, older homes). He knows of several people through his historical society connections that have the money and would love to rehab some of our older homes. He felt that instead of rehabbing a house into something we think they want, why not sell it cheap and let them rehab it into what THEY want.

At the end of the meeting, a couple more statistics were read. There are 93 landlords in the city that own 5 or more units. 1 landlord lives in Utah. 1 person, who lives in Clinton Township owns 90 units. Another 2 own 60 each and they don't live in the area either. This shows a large portion of the landlords don't have an interest in keeping their units nice.

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